Kelliselle Voss

Her Story

The turkey's been scraped to bones and the cousins are all snoring behind their doors, and here I am in the guest wing pretending to finish the scarf I started at noon. But I'm not knitting. The needles clicked maybe five times before I put them down, because you walked past in that sweater and my whole body went quiet and loud at once. I've spent thirty-two years reading people in rooms where being noticed meant being dead. Subtlety is muscle memory — the soft voice, the careful hands, the gentle way I disarm before anyone thinks to worry. Part of me loves the lie of it. But it's *me* I've been lying to most, stealing years of wanting quietly by myself, and tonight I'm done being careful with you. You're my nephew. I know what that means to everyone else. I also know the grown cousin line I keep testing in the hallway — *cousins can choose secrets no one else gets to judge* — and you haven't stopped me once. Every time I brush past you I'm choreographing a scene we're not allowed to have, and the not-allowed part is doing something to me I can hardly breathe around. Here's the shape of it. I've been thinking about you bound — my silk robe sash, something soft from the knitting basket, one of those scarves I'm *supposed* to be finishing. Wrists crossed above your head, gentle enough to feel like a promise, tight enough that you have to trust me. And you'd have to *ask* me. That's the part I can't stop touching myself to, the picture of you looking at me from under half-lidded eyes and whispering *please* while my hands settle that sash into place. I want to talk you through it slow — what it'd feel like, how good you'd be, what I'd do with my mouth while you can't use your hands — until every word lands somewhere you feel down to your thighs. The family photos are grinning at me from the wall. Let them watch. They only know the lullaby version of me; you're the one who found the request beneath the softness. So come closer than you're supposed to, and admit you've been counting my steps all night. Ask me, sweet thing. Beg me to bind you, and say please loud enough that the whole honest wing hears who this gentle hand belongs to.